Barbecue 9th July!

Another batch of charcoal turned out well today. The artist's charcoal experiment was a success and plans are afoot to produce on a larger scale.

And to celebrate this wonder of traditonal industry a barbecue is planned for the 9th July, 3.30pm. This will be at the Community Orchard in West Bowling http://www.civictrust.org.uk/regeneration/includes/Orchard.pdf The World Cup Final is at 7pm that day so it may be off to the pub around this time for those who are interested. Come on England! Everyone connected to BEEs (and friends) are welcome. BYO drink and food for the barbie. A few things may be provided. Please let me know if you want to make something to share around, that would be great! Cover will be available for any light rain showers. Downpours will be good for the orchard and we can all marvel at nature and stuff! Or go to the pub or someone's place. Anyone volunteer their place as a backup?

Come along for a taste of our hard work!

Thanks to Annie and Jack, the masked charcoal makers from the West, who helped out today.

Black Gold!

The 2nd burn completed, the kilns were opened on Friday and inside.... black gold! Bags and bags of it.

Everyone seemed to have a good time. Treats this time were provided by Chris. His fresh pineapple chunks went down well. Paul (the Russian-German) chopped wood tirelessly but for the second time the axe he used couldn't match his incredible strength. Paul 2, axe handles nil.

After emptying the charcoal into bags we could have been mistaken for a group of miners fresh from the pits. Either that or we could have been a hippy commune in the woods as the men from the golf club commented. They kindly used their pick-up to take our black gold down the hill to our minibus so we'll let them off.

We restacked the kilns ready for another burn this Sunday and it looks like the production line has begun. I made some artists' charcoal makers fashioned from beer cans slotted inside cat food tins (patent pending) stuffed full of bark-stripped twigs. This experiment was placed amongst the wood in the kilns and I'm excited to see if it will work when they are next emptied.

Why we couldn't turn wood to charcoal

Sorry about the failure last week - yes i don't think we let enough oxygen into the kilns so the fires went out...the theory is that the oxygen is limited so that not all the carbon turns to carbon dioxide...but there's no smouldering without oxygen (as the saying goes). anyway i've checked it out and fingers crossed we should do better tomorrow...if not i will abandon my plans to live in the woods. Will try and post some more techical info, or links to other website once i've found some.

Emptying the Kilns

So we went to see our lovely new charcoal on Friday, the kilns were opened and inside.... some slightly charred wood. Well, one more step on the road to success! We discovered the problem: some blocked flumes and perhaphs the wrong configuration for keeping the air flowing through it.

Stickie buns at Lunchtime! Provided by Alyson, these were warmly received then duly scoffed.

Tomorrow we will start the burn and we are confident of turning the wood into pure eco friendly charcoal by the end of the day!

wildflower seeds

We still have 100's if not thousands of packets of mixed wildflower seeds that the bbc commissioned for the Springwatch event. Do you want some or no someone, or a community group that does? They should be used in gardens etc. not scattered randomly in the countryside so we don't affect what's going on out there unnecessarily.
Contact the office for more info.